1.\" $NetBSD: uuencode.1,v 1.22 2013/01/28 16:08:02 apb Exp $ 2.\" 3.\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1990, 1993 4.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 5.\" 6.\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without 7.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions 8.\" are met: 9.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright 10.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer. 11.\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright 12.\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the 13.\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution. 14.\" 3. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors 15.\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software 16.\" without specific prior written permission. 17.\" 18.\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND 19.\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE 20.\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE 21.\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE 22.\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL 23.\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS 24.\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) 25.\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT 26.\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY 27.\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF 28.\" SUCH DAMAGE. 29.\" 30.\" @(#)uuencode.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93 31.\" 32.Dd January 28, 2012 33.Dt UUENCODE 1 34.Os 35.Sh NAME 36.Nm uuencode , 37.Nm uudecode 38.Nd encode/decode a binary file 39.Sh SYNOPSIS 40.Nm 41.Op Fl m 42.Op Ar inputfile 43.Ar outputname 44.Nm uudecode 45.Op Fl m 46.Op Fl p | Fl o Ar outputfile 47.Op Ar encoded-file ... 48.Sh DESCRIPTION 49.Nm 50and 51.Nm uudecode 52are used to transmit binary files over transmission mediums 53that do not support other than simple 54.Tn ASCII 55data. 56.Pp 57The following options are available: 58.Bl -tag -width ".Fl m" 59.It Fl m 60Use base64 encoding. 61The default is that 62.Nm 63uses the historical uuencode algorithm, 64and 65.Nm uudecode 66automatically detects the encoding. 67.It Fl o Ar outputname 68.Po Nm uudecode No only . Pc 69Use the specified 70.Ar outputname 71as the name of the output file. 72The default is that 73.Nm uudecode 74obtains the name of the output file from the data stream, where 75.Nm 76would have recorded it. 77.It Fl p 78.Po Nm uudecode No only . Pc 79Write the decoded file to stdout instead of to a named file. 80.El 81.Pp 82.Nm 83reads 84.Ar inputfile 85(or by default the standard input) and writes an encoded version 86to the standard output. 87The encoding uses only printing 88.Tn ASCII 89characters and includes the 90mode of the file and the operand 91.Ar outputname 92for use by 93.Nm uudecode . 94.Pp 95.Nm uudecode 96transforms 97.Em uuencoded 98files (or by default, the standard input) into the original form. 99The resulting file is named 100.Ar outputname 101as recorded in the encoded file, 102or as specified by the 103.Fl o 104option, 105and will have the mode of the original file except that setuid 106and execute bits are not retained. 107If the 108.Fl p 109option is specified, or if the output file name is given as 110.Pa /dev/stdout , 111then the data will be written to the standard output 112instead of to a named file. 113.Nm uudecode 114ignores any leading and trailing lines. 115.Sh EXIT STATUS 116The 117.Nm uudecode 118and 119.Nm 120utilities exits 0 on success, and \*[Gt]0 if an error occurs. 121.Sh EXAMPLES 122The following example packages up a source tree, compresses it, 123uuencodes it and mails it to a user on another system. 124.Pp 125.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact 126tar czf \- src_tree \&| uuencode src_tree.tgz \&| mail user@example.com 127.Ed 128.Pp 129On the other system, if the user saves the mail to the file 130.Pa temp , 131the following example creates the file 132.Pa src_tree.tgz 133and extracts it to make a copy of the original tree. 134.Pp 135.Bd -literal -offset indent -compact 136uudecode temp 137tar xzf src_tree.tgz 138.Ed 139.Sh SEE ALSO 140.Xr gzip 1 , 141.Xr mail 1 , 142.Xr tar 1 , 143.\".Xr uucp 1 , 144.Xr uuencode 5 145.Sh STANDARDS 146The 147.Nm uudecode 148and 149.Nm 150utilities conform to 151.St -p1003.1-2008 . 152.Sh HISTORY 153The 154.Nm uudecode 155and 156.Nm 157utilities appeared in 158.Bx 4.0 . 159.Sh BUGS 160The encoded form of the file is expanded by 35% (3 bytes become 4 plus 161control information). 162